


i get this feeling

by navience



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cephalopod Facts, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Venka-centric, and, not technically mentioned but it's an important part of the story, overall it's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28698834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navience/pseuds/navience
Summary: Venka is really in love with Rin. She just can't say it.
Relationships: Fang Runin/Sring Venka
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	i get this feeling

**Author's Note:**

> and everytime we kiss i swear i can fly cant u feel my heart beat slow i cant let u go i want u in my life [instrumental]

The thing about Rin was that she was Rin.

Being around her was like standing in direct sunlight, under a magnifying glass, wrapped in all black, with hand warmers stuffed in your pockets for good measure.

Or maybe that was just Venka, who had polled her friends and a few strangers off the street and come out with the knowledge that she was mostly the only one who felt like she suffered from heat stroke every time Rin so much as looked at her. Certainly, other people could understand— they reported a mild sense of warmth and an attraction to Rin’s passionate personality and charming and direct manner, but none of them ever attained the same level of flushed blotchiness that Venka had been plagued with for all the years she’d known Rin. 

First, she’d come to the conclusion that she was allergic to Rin, but apparently that “wasn’t possible” and she was “oblivious as fuck,” which Venka thought was hurtful but also ultimately true. 

When they’d started dating, Venka had struggled with affection. A lot. This might come as a surprise, but she, having come into possession of a number of emotional walls throughout her lifetime, was not, in fact, as perfect at everything as she might have preferred or claimed to be. Rin had taken it all in stride, and that just made Venka more embarrassed every time her girlfriend called her  _ babe  _ or  _ sweetheart _ or  _ pretty girl _ and she froze up and turned the shade of a tomato, which was not the cool cucumber image she hoped to present to the object of her affections. 

Just because she had the emotional range of, perhaps, a particularly cranky cat, didn’t mean she didn’t try. 

“Rin,” she said one day, putting her hands on both sides of her girlfriend’s face. “I think you’re cool.”

“Thank you,” Rin had smiled genuinely at her, putting her hands on top of hers. Venka had flushed a violent red, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to move her hands away from Rin’s cheeks, even when Rin turned her head to kiss Venka’s palm and she had to close her eyes before she said something really stupid, like  _ I like you  _ or  _ please marry me _ or  _ would you be okay with a joint grave? _

Another time, they had been in their shared kitchen— technically, Rin had her own apartment, but Venka was starting to suspect from the fact that she never slept there and had been rearranging her furniture to make room for several boxes containing clothes, textbooks, and hygiene products that they were preparing to take that step— doing something mundane, cooking dinner. Venka, who preferred to do the cooking because everything Rin made came out crisped and blackened, had always insisted that nobody join her in the cramped kitchen, but, as Rin was the exception to so many things, had found that she was more than tolerable to have with her. As Venka sang softly along to the loud music playing from her speaker, Rin danced along, stepping out of her way when she announced that she was coming through with a knife and spinning her in breathless circles when she’d barely put down a hot dish. This time, while Venka shoved onions and garlic around a pan like she was trying to grind them to powder with her wooden spatula, Rin talked about her day, about her studies, about her burning hatred for a certain professor.

“I swear, babe—” Venka prided herself on no longer forgetting how to breathe when Rin referred to her with terms of affection— “I’m going to kill him in his sleep, but slowly enough that he wakes up and finds out that he’s  _ dying _ halfway through. Ugh, I can’t deal with…” Her voice faded out, somewhat akin to the sweet drone of honeybees in Venka’s ears as she watched Rin speak, her face alight as always with expressive emotion, a slight smile on her face contrasting her gory words.

“You’re beautiful,” Venka murmured, then starting and covering her face in her hands in the hopes that she could summon the powers of the ostrich. When she peeked through her fingers, she saw Rin, laughing, reaching toward her, which was really not good for her heart at all, seeing as it quickly jumped to a rate that could probably kill a rabbit. 

“Can I hug you?” Rin asked, laughter still in her voice, always so good at letting Venka control physical encounters of all kinds. Wordlessly, Venka nodded, trading her hands for the junction between Rin’s shoulder and neck, which was one of her top ten places to bury her face in shame after being overwhelmed with affection for Rin.

The onions had burned.

Other people didn’t always understand the thing about Venka.

“You’re dating? Wow,” one of their acquaintances had once commented. “You guys are, like, polar opposites. Rin is so,” they mimed an explosion, something big and hot and fiery. “And Venka is so,” they crossed their arms and frowned deeply, as though they had judged the situation and found it displeasing.

“We don’t like PDA,” Venka said hotly. “But we’re more similar than you might think.”

“Aye,” Rin said, frowning deeply, as though she had judged the situation and found it displeasing.

That incident had turned into a funny story between them, a reminder that they were a less odd couple than some might think.

However, sometimes Venka’s efforts did feel— inadequate. 

For example, she hadn’t ever said  _ I love you _ to Rin.

Logically, she knew Rin wasn’t upset about it. Rin herself had said it for the first time in their second year of dating, and Venka had replied with “Okay. Get well soon,” but Rin kept saying it until Venka no longer replied with a fact about cephalopods (all except the nautilus can change the color and texture of their skin) or a carefully neutral “I think you’re funky fresh,” or, once, with a twenty dollar bill, which had offended Rin so much she refused to speak to her for a full day. Now, she only blushed faintly and kissed the corner of Rin’s mouth in response, which was probably an improvement, but they were fast approaching over four years of dating and she was starting to worry.

How much time did she have before Rin got annoyed that she couldn’t express her feelings?

She wanted to reciprocate easily, she really did. It wasn’t like she didn’t love Rin. She was just terrified of Rin finding out that she loved her, which was silly, but the way she felt nonetheless.

“Rin,” she said, glaring at the mirror. “I— care about you.”

The mirror did not respond. Having overcome her hypothesis that Rin was perhaps hiding behind the shower curtain or in the second dimension of her reflection, she felt a little braver.

“Rin. I like you.” That was easy enough. She had said that before. “I… like you,” she said again, and groaned. Her mouth just couldn’t fit the words, so impossibly large. Like the unbearable, ever-growing, sweetly smoking torch she carried around for Rin, only for Rin, was too gorgeously conflagrating to set loose in the world, to let its wings beat freely without the constraints of her steel ribs, of her armored heart. 

“Rin,” she tried again. “Without you, I could never care for another person again, never trust a person like I trust you. You brighten my days and set the world spinning each morning. I can’t fear my own death, because each day you make me feel alive. You have taught me that love is the foundation, love is the salvation, love is what I give to the world in payment for giving me you. When I go to sleep I know that I am loved and I know when I wake I will be loved too. So  _ why _ can’t I say it? Why can’t I say that I— I lesbian you?”

She frowned. That wasn’t what she had meant to say either. 

Rin found her, that day, lumped in among the blankets, staring up at the ceiling.

“You okay?” She said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed, and Venka was filled with hate, hate that Rin had found her here before, that she had helped her through her worst days, that she still couldn’t say it.

“I’m sorry,” she choked, and Rin frowned. 

“You don’t have anything to apologize for. You haven’t done anything wrong, pretty girl. You know that?”

“No, it’s not— it’s not that,” Venka said, sitting up. She grabbed Rin’s hand, toying with her fingers, and watched the anxiety drain from Rin’s face and figure. “ _ Ugh _ , I’m sorry.”

“Okay, if it’s not, like, a trigger or panic attack or anything like that, what’s up?”

“I just,” she mumbled and then spoke all in one breath, “do-you-really-want-to-be-with-me?”

“Of course I do, idiot,” Rin said. 

“No, like, me. I’m not like other girls,” she said, her voice hard and flat. “Other girls don’t have days where they can’t be touched at all. Other girls know how to name their feelings, much less talk about it. Other girls can say— can say  _ I ell-oh-vee-ee you. _ And you should, I don’t know, a relationship needs more. It can’t live on fucking cephalopod facts.”

“Yes, it can,” Rin said matter-of-factly. “Do you really think you’ve never said the l-word to me?” Venka glared suspiciously at her.

“I think I’d notice if I had.”

“Okay, maybe not like that, but, c’mon. No one else turns fire-engine red like you do when I call you babe, or squishes my face like when you want my attention, or tells random strangers that I’m the hottest person alive, which is a lie, by the way, because it’s always been you. And you say it when you eat my food, even when it’s so burnt it looks like it went to literal actual hell, and you smile and you say it tastes like restaurant quality and harass me to make it again. You put up with me flailing and calling it dancing in the kitchen—”

“I think you’re a great dancer,” Venka said, fire-engine red.

“You lie to me, except you actually believe it. And it’s not like you’re the only mentally fucked one in this relationship, but we’re getting better together. You know me, and I know you, so don’t act like you’re not telling me you love me every time you yell at me because you’re worried about me and my dumb ass. Okay? I’ll wait for you, as long as it takes.”

“Okay,” Venka said, her voice small.

“Repeat after me.”

“You’ll wait for me,” she said. Rin nodded encouragingly.

“Even when we’re ninety-three and you forget as soon as I say it.”

“Yep.”

“Even when I’m just bones rattling in our joint grave.”

“Yop. Wait, our what?”

The morning of their anniversary, Rin woke her up with smoking pancakes and a blinding white grin, and without thinking:

“God, I love you.”

Rin dropped the tray of food.

Venka turned over and screamed into her pillow. Rin said:

“There are eight hundred living species of cephalopods. Also, I love you too.”

And they lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY LYN technically i am working very hard on the absolute monstrosity that is shaman!venka for you but it's literally So Much so here's a happy lil oneshot for u (a week late)!! i love u thank u for taking every stupid thought i throw at u at 2 am and for willingly beta reading my garbage and for putting up with me just [SCREAMING] all the fucking time. i appreciate u so much and thank u for helping me be the most annoying person who's ever read tpw. ily ily ily mwah


End file.
